The roar was deafening.
In 2024, Josh D’Amaro, then head of Disney’s theme park division and now newly knighted CEO of the whole company, took the stage in Anaheim, California, for D23, a sort of all-Disney Comic-Con, to unveil a land themed to the media giant’s roster of memorable villains coming to Walt Disney World. The crowd erupted in thunderous applause.
“We love our Disney Villains right?” D’Amaro, nary a hair out of place, asked the gathered sea of Disney fans, decked out in their theme park finery. “Their evil ambition gives us endless possibilities to tell brand-new stories, which is why I am so excited to announce that we are building a Villains Land in the Magic Kingdom.”
As purposefully vague concept art flashed on the screen behind him, this is when the crowd really exploded. D’Amaro paused for nearly 30 seconds before continuing. He looked towards the artwork on the screen behind him, looked back at the audience, nodded approvingly and soaked it all in.
“This land will be home to the villains you know and those that you loathe, which means that happily ever after may feel like just a dream,” D’Amaro said.
But in the nearly two years since the Villains Land has been announced, precious little has been revealed about what the project actually is. Sure, Walt Disney World’s Rivers of America, also at the Magic Kingdom, has been drained and work is underway on a new “Cars”-themed area. And Muppet*Vision 3D, Jim Henson’s beloved attraction over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, has been shuttered and partially demolished, making way for an area themed to Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc.” But we haven’t heard or, more importantly, seen much in the way of progress on Villains Land (or whatever it’ll end up being called).
The project is now getting reimagined with a focus on bolder, bigger ideas, with Imagineers having just been notified before the new year that the previously laid plans were scrapped, according to people familiar with the situation. The expansion, after all, will serve as the first significant addition to the theme parks under D’Amaro’s watch, one meant to drive shareholder value and reinvigorate interest in Orlando, Florida’s Disney World.
The development comes at a time when the success of the parks business is more critical to Disney than ever — the division topped $10 billion in revenue for the first time ever in the fourth quarter and accounts for a staggering 71% of the entire company’s operating profit. But it also comes amid concern that rising prices at its parks is pushing out the middle class just as Universal’s freshly opened (and cheaper) Epic Universe in Orlando is presenting consumers with an attractive alternative.
All of this means the stakes are high for a project that parkgoers won’t be able to visit for several years. The goal is for Villains Land to reinforce the idea that, under D’Amaro, the Disney Parks will enter a new golden age.
“It’s going to be a fearless new vision for what a Disney experience can be,” D’Amaro promised back at D23.
That intent remains true now and has only gotten more ambitious.
A representative for Disney Parks declined to comment when reached by TheWrap.
First, a message board post
It started off innocuously enough.
Len Testa, the owner of Touring Plans and author of the bestselling “Unofficial Guide” series, posted to a Disney discussion group on a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. “I’m hearing the initial plans for Villains Land have been scrapped. Imagineers have been told to think of bigger, bolder ideas. Budget secondary,” Testa wrote on the WDWMagic forum.
According to several people with knowledge of the situation, this is very much the case, reinforced by something that D’Amaro recently told Harvard Business Review about Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run, an expensive, cutting-edge attraction in the “Star Wars”-themed land at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. “Guests like it,” D’Amaro told the publication, “but they don’t love it.”
This new iteration of Villains Land is intended to be a place that visitors to Walt Disney World will love, a rethink of the original project meant to maximize profits and also deliver something truly unforgettable.
Every CEO gets a chance to put a land in the Magic Kingdom. This is his shot.” – an individual with knowledge on Josh D’Amaro’s Villains Land ambitions
But the revised project has left those inside Walt Disney Imagineering, the division of the company responsible for the company’s vast portfolio of theme park attractions, cruise ships and retail destinations, scrambling to deliver something spectacular – and quick.
“Money may be infinite but time is finite,” opined one former Imagineer who had knowledge of the project.
The idea of a redo of Villains Land was, according to a source, floated before the Imagineers left for the holiday break. When they returned – both the core group working on the project at the Imagineering offices in Glendale, Calif., and a satellite group stationed out of the former Galactic Starcruiser building in Florida (yes, seriously) were told that the project would be re-concieved.
According to several sources, the point of reference for the land has gone from Dark Universe, the Universal Monsters-themed area of the recently opened Epic Universe, to the Isle of Berk, a land centered on “How to Train Your Dragons,” also at Epic Universe. Berk, which won the 2026 Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theme Park Land category, is not only more expansive, with several rides, fun food options, an immersive stage show and tons of exclusive merchandise, but it is also, crucially, brighter and more family friendly.
But there’s another way in which D’Amaro and the Villains Land team wish to emulate Berk.
In an earnings call earlier this month, Comcast said that Epic Universe is driving higher per-cap spending – guests to the new park are spending more money there and extending their vacations just to see it. The idea with the new version of Villains Lands is do the same. Disney wants to create an unmissable land where you will spend lots of time and lots of money. And maybe bump up that three-day vacation to a five- or seven-day affair.
A brief, villainous history
Disney Villains have always been a part of the Disney Parks experience.
When Disneyland opened in 1955, one of the inaugural attractions was Snow White and Her Adventures, which didn’t actually feature the title character from the 1937 masterpiece, but instead put guests in the shoes of Snow White as she encountered the Evil Queen and the Seven Dwarfs. When the attraction was overhauled in 1983, it was rechristened with the more aggressive Snow White’s Scary Adventures. Another opening day Disneyland attraction, Peter Pan’s Flight, located across the way from Snow White, also heavily featured the villainous Captain Hook.
And while Disney villains would roam the parks and pop up in the annual Halloween parades, a purely Disney villain-dedicated space didn’t debut until 1986, when the Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour opened at Tokyo Disneyland. “The idea was to do a Haunted Mansion-type experience but not the Haunted Mansion,” former Imagineer Mark Eades told me years ago.
The experience combined a number of Disney villains: the Magic Mirror from “Snow White” appears, as does Stromboli from “Pinocchio,” along with the Chernabog from “Fantasia” and those impish goons from “Sleeping Beauty.” At the end of the tour, you would come face-to-face with the Horned King from “The Black Cauldron,” at the time one of the most sophisticated audio-animatronic figures that Disney had created. You would vanquish him, of course, and return to the sunnier aspects of Fantasyland.
Villains Mountain, a long flume ride which would have been a new member of Disney’s “mountain chain” of attractions that at the time included Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Expedition Everest (known as the Forbidden Mountain), was proposed in the late 1990s for a parcel of land not too far from where Villains Land is currently being plotted – in Tomorrowland, where 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage took visitors on an aquatic adventure. The project got pretty far along, with height tests done on the spot where the Mountain would be built, but it was ultimately canceled.
And while the idea of an all-villains park, dubbed by fans Dark Kingdom, was never actually in development, current Imagineers are, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, scouring over the long history of proposed attractions for the upscaled version of Villains Land.
“Every CEO gets a chance to put a land in the Magic Kingdom. This is his shot,” said one person with knowledge of the plans, about D’Amaro. “He’s thinking, I’m going to be five years into my tenure as CEO when this thing opens. If I’m going to influence it, I’m going to do it now.” And that’s exactly what he’s doing
Breaking down the land
Original concept art for Villain Land featured a large, black roller coaster, its spindly track curving around the land, adored with the prickly thorn bushes from “Sleeping Beauty.” It would be one of two rides plotted for the area, along with the dining and entertainment offerings, alluded to in D’Amaro’s initial D23 presentation. And while the new plan loosely follows these contours, according to those with knowledge of the plans, virtually everything else has changed.
“You’ve gone through phases of work, including Blue Sky,” said the former Imagineer. “They aren’t willing to build that. They’ll build something like that but not that. That’s going to cost them time and money.”
(Blue Sky is a phase of Imagineering where anything is possible. You aren’t hampered by the real-world limitations of budget, construction or technology. This is the dreamiest phase of attraction planning and a phase that is most romanticized/idolized by the Disney fan community. For years there was a Blue Sky Cellar attraction at Disney California Adventure, where you could preview upcoming rides, shows and attractions while they were still in their infancy.)
The coaster was planned to be the big draw. As the concept art suggested, it was going to be themed to Maleficent, the big bad from “Sleeping Beauty,” who was later brought to life in the live-action “Maleficent” films by Angelina Jolie. This was going to be a really-for-real thrill ride, potentially borrowing elements from the Villains Mountain concept, according with one source with knowledge of the attraction. (Things hadn’t totally been finalized.)
Now, it is being converted to a more family-friendly coaster, along the lines of Slinky Dog Dash at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, this time themed to “The Emperor’s New Groove.” This makes sense, considering that antagonists Yzma and Kronk actually ride a rollercoaster in that 2000 comedy, and how many more guests you can get on the ride with a lower height requirement. (Before you ask, yes, there is a “pull the lever” moment in the ride currently.) And fret not, Maleficent will still be a major presence in the land.
Elsewhere in Villains Land, Hades will rule over a dinner show that is being described as in the same vein as the Diamond Horseshoe Revue, a dinner show at the Magic Kingdom. Pain and Panic will also be along for the fun, with additional villains filtering in. This will be a full-service, sit-down restaurant with prefix dining, taking the place of a previously envisioned restaurant themed to Madam Medusa from “The Rescuers.” The bayou vibes would have been impeccable.
The major attraction is going to be themed to Maleficent from “Sleeping Beauty,” with an indoor water-based ride system that could emulate the Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure attraction at Shanghai Disneyland.
The idea now is that the attraction’s scale and complexity will rival must-do attractions like Radiator Springs Racers in Disney California Adventure and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance in Galaxy’s Edge. This, chiefly, has to do with making sure that the attraction warrants a Lightning Lane Single Pass – a surcharge that will get you to the front of the line but that won’t be included with the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, meaning it can range from $11 to $35 per person just to get to the front of that line. And you can’t make the rollercoaster a Lightning Lane Single Pass attraction since, with Florida’s frequent weather, it will constantly be shutting down and Disney doesn’t want to refund anybody.
The stakes are high. To justify the Maleficent attraction being a Lighting Lane Single Ticket experience, it has to be really, really good.
If you’re D’Amaro right now, according to Tesa, “You need to know that when this thing opens, he can get Lightning Lane Single Pass revenue for 10 years. And if you want families from Denver to give you $20 per person to ride that ride, you have to make sure that you can make it worthwhile. If you can’t, you can’t take another run at it.”
There will also be various character interactions throughout the land. According to one source, Disney has kept a keen eye on the appeal of Igor in Dark Universe, a face performer who largely makes up his own routine in the framework of the character, one of Frankenstein’s minions. And then there are the exclusive shopping opportunities and food kiosks. Whatever you’ve ever dreamed of taking home from Villains Land, you’ll be able to do.
But wait, there’s more.
According to multiple sources, there will also be a third, as-yet-unannounced ride in the land. Not an attraction on the level of the Maleficent boat ride and not one that requires additional infrastructure, as the South Florida Water Management District plans have shown where the areas for the dark ride and the coaster will go, along with a new train station — but a carnival-style “flat ride.” According to one source, the likely ride will be a spinner, like Dumbo the Flying Elephant, themed to Ursula from “The Little Mermaid.” This ride would be based on previously drawn-up plans for a version of the ride that would have been built at Disney California Adventure, where Inside Out: Emotional Whirlwind sits now.
This was during a time when the entire area at DCA was going to be re-themed, with California Screamin’ turned into a villains-heavy affair, with the scream tunnels turned into the giant snake Jafar morphs into at the end of “Aladdin” and the loop being Captain Hook’s hook. But hey, as the saying goes, no good idea at Walt Disney Imagineering ever goes away.
Dollars and sense
According to one source, these updated plans for Villains Land are due in the next couple of weeks. Then D’Amaro will take the proposal to the board, which will decide whether or not to proceed with the more elaborate and, really, more fun version of the land.
And for them to go ahead with the project, they must be really confident. Not that it always pans out.
“There were a lot of assumptions about Galaxy’s Edge that didn’t pan out,” said a former Imagineer about the “Star Wars”-themed land that has seen interest cool considerably since opening. And the less said about the Galactic Starcruiser, a hybrid live-action role-playing game/hotel experience that Disney sunk nearly $1 billion into and closed shortly after opening, the better.
There is precedent for this kind of mid-stream correction. When Disney announced New Fantasyland, another expanded area of its Magic Kingdom, built on the plot of land where Villains Mountain was originally earmarked, it didn’t include the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Instead, there was an expansive royal hall where the Disney Princesses could meet guests. But after some development, the royal hall was replaced by the kiddie coaster, which is routinely one of the most popular attractions in the entire park. It currently has a 50-minute standby wait time.
The new version of Villains Land will, more than giving shareholders great value for their investment, establish D’Amaro as a champion for taking the bigger, more creative route after years of corporate second-guessing and needless penny-pinching, which defined the regime of Bob Chapek, who oversaw parks briefly and then became CEO of the entire company even-more-briefly. There has already been positioning that this land will be something new and original; in a January Wall Street Journal report the land was dubbed “the closest thing to an original land in Disney’s U.S. parks in 25 years.”
For D’Amaro, this could be the crown jewel of his tenure as CEO.
In home makeover terms, it’s less a tear-down and more a smartly executed renovation of the current plans, making sure that Disney can wring every last dollar out of everyone who will be stopping by Villains Land when it opens in the not-too-distant future. One estimate has the redo pushing the project back by a year or so. While official timelines haven’t been provided, given the amount of construction projects around Walt Disney World, including new lands and attractions at Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, it seems likely that it would open no earlier than 2029.
One thing’s for sure – since they will settle on the exact make-up of Villains Land in the next few weeks, the revamped area’s grand unveiling will undoubtedly be at this year’s D23 in Anaheim. D’Amaro, addressing the Mickey Mouse ear-wearing masses, will announce that the land will be even bigger, better and more spectacular than what they originally planned. Try and act surprised.
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